How Do You Define Joy?

You know the slogan. Taking anything that life hands you and finding joy in it.

Making the best in every circumstance.

But the reality is, this principle is hard. It is hard to find joy in health issues, weight gain, marital problems or in my case sick, crying, emotional babies, and countless hours of lost sleep. Not to mention all of the other responsibilities we have on our shoulders as adults.

Finding joy can be difficult and so we become people who are complacent, uncaring and complainers.

In this article I want to show five simple strategies that can change the course of your life. To help you achieve a life of success, peace and most importantly, happiness.

Choosing Joy:

I must say I never would have tagged my personality as a complainer or even negative for that matter. I really always thought I was a compassionate, fun loving person. Buuuutttt that reality was soon awoken to months of discontentment and negative thoughts about my life, my job, our personal finances, and darn near every other thing present in my life. My character had changed.

Out of spite I continued putting one foot in front of the other but voicing my negative opinion every chance I had. While in hindsight it seems so obvious I was going no where because I was enabling the situation I was in by complaining. But in it, through it and still today I have to remember that while I didn’t necessarily verbalize every complaint and negative thought running through my mind, I was having them. I am still having them and I must change this to a positive.

The reality is, I couldn’t take a compliment. I couldn’t accept a success. I wasn’t content or satisfied with anything. I was my own worst critic. I was pulling myself down and I was living in a viscous cycle of going nowhere simply because I wouldn’t let myself.

Are you living in the same viscous cycle?

The bad news:

It is hard to get yourself out of these unconscious evil habits. The negative thoughts and self talk seep in, suffocating out any positive mentality from gaining ground. And even more, the reality we all live in is that life is hard. Things go wrong daily, curve balls come flying and you are left to think on your feet. Plans get crushed, expectations don’t get met and this is the very thing we call life.

->SIGH<-

We wait for the perfect moment to change our eating habits, to start exercising, to write a note to a friend, to accept a compliment. And we wait some more and more until months and years have past and you too are living a negative viscous cycle, all because life happened and it happened differently than we expected.

Life never goes as planned, ever and that is a given. Waiting for the right moment to change your health, the path of your life, to work on your finances and paying off debt, well if you wait your chances of success diminish, and quickly at that.

This way of life, isn’t worth it. The negative self talk, disappointment and unhappiness makes you miss all that life really has to offer. The joys of laughter, of smiles, of taking care of your body, of running a race, achieving your dreams, paying off debt, of living the life you were meant.

The good news:

We can overcome this. We can choose to make a better life but just as I said, it is a choice. You have to want to do it, you have to commit to it, and most importantly you have to smash any negative thought or action and foster positivity, happiness and joy.

Can you imagine a life of peace? A life of contentment? A life of true happiness? I know it seems all fluffy like rainbows and butterflies and maybe it is. But regardless, a life of taking what is thrown at you and making the best of it is where success lies. Success is not waiting for the perfect moment, but making every moment perfect. It is being able to utilize the life you have as a spring board for greater things. So here are my top five tips to achieving success of happiness and helping you define joy. The life you want.

Five Simple Strategies to achieving the best life possible in health, wealth and happiness:

1. Be Grateful

The best way to overcome negative thoughts and actions is to replace them with positive. While it seems like everything is crashing in around you. Life is just one failure after another, I bet if you really slow down and take time to find something positive, being grateful for the joys of your life you will realize that maybe this life, well it isn’t so bad after all.

2. Trust in Greater Things

There is always the fear of the unknown, the what-if’s and the back-up plans. The fear of how things will turn out and so you stay stuck in the fear of nothing changing. Stop living in fear and start trusting in greater things. Cling to the promises of God and the wonders of his work and let those fears shrivel under his power.

3. Commit to work

Life is hard and the only way to make changes is to choose and commit to doing something. You will be waiting a long time if you are waiting for happiness, health and success to fall into your lap. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen this way even if it seems like it. We all have to work to achieve the desires of our life. Make a commitment and find joy in that.

4. Change your Expectations

Many times our expectations on whether they were met or not determine our attitude. Do you lose joy over the fact that nothing ever goes as planned? Maybe we need to change our expectations. I don’t necessarily want you to lower your expectations, but in one sense we at least need to make them realistic and achievable. So often we set ourself up to fail by simply setting expectations that are way too high which crushes our chances of ever achieving success.

5. Make Lemonade

As the slogan goes, When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This is the only life we have, we might as well choose to make the best of it. Stop waiting around for the perfect moment, the perfect scenario. Instead make changes to find joy and live in happiness today. It is a choice and a commitment you have to make.

only one day

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About Alexa

Alexa is a Nutritionist currently pursuing her Masters degree in Public Health. She specializes in helping her clients to see the whole picture of health and wellness and enjoys developing healthy grain free recipes and writing about various health topics. She lives in a cornfield in Iowa with her husband Payton and their three daughters, Ava, Addie and Auden.